The main big change is that I’ve introduced some supernatural/magic elements to bring MW solidly into the urban fantasy realm. I’ve tried to integrate a magic system before but I could never find anything that felt thematically cohesive that also jived with the main plot. I’m still early in development with my current concept, but it works a lot better than anything else I’ve come up with before. I’m hesitant to talk a lot about it because a lot of details are still up in the air but know that it’s thematically relevant to land ownership rights and capitalism and those sorts of things. Oh, and the magic periodically manifests into a scary eldritch monster, so that’s pretty neat.

I’m really excited about the magical elements because it lets me get a solid motivation in place for the Dantescorp characters and really focus in on them as antagonists. In past drafts their motivation as antagonists has been either mind numbingly boring or just plain nonexistent. The magic stuff also lets me reincorporate a few cool plot moments that had previously been cut when I decided MW wouldn’t have magic in earlier drafts, and give the whole project a stronger ideological backbone than it used to have.

Um, other things... I’ve axed a lot of the cast to cut down to the interesting subplots. Vince/Nathan don’t really exist anymore beyond as background characters and Igor is totally gone because he doesn’t fit with the new premise and I had a bunch of issues with him anyway. I feel a bit bad because I know he was rather popular among people who were familiar with MW’s cast but he just... wasn’t working for a variety of reasons. I had been trying to fix those issues by tweaking things about him / his motivations / etc. but I sorta realized it would have to be a “throw out the whole suitcase” kinda deal sadly. On the other hand, a few characters who had really been sidelined in my previous drafts have a lot more development in this draft, including Selene. Irvine’s gotten some development that makes her more morally dubious that I personally really like; her existing character was relevant to the themes I’ve decided to pursue and I just needed to push her more in certain directions. Hartwell’s probably gonna get a complete overhaul and hopefully will become a lot more interesting — she had previously only been around to jumpstart the inciting incident and help with development for Basil and Freddie which was not at all ideal. Basil’s backstory has been retooled a bit with the removal of Igor and introduction of the magic stuff but the main beats are still the same; the same goes for most of the rest of the cast. Also, not something I’ve ever talked much about, but the ending should be a lot more cathartic than it used to be; previous drafts ended on a bittersweet downer kinda note that wasn’t really what I wanted.